UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


SCHOOL  OF  LAW 
LIBRARY 


77/7:  STRENGTH  AND   WEAKNESS  OF  POPULAR 
GOVERNMENT  l.\   THE  UNITED  STATES. 


ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATING  CLASSES 


AT   THE 


SIXTY-SIXTH  ANNIVERSARY 


YALE   LAW  SCHOOL 


ON 


June  24,  1890, 


CHARLES  J.  BONAPARTE,  ESQ. 


HOGGSON  &  ROBINSON, 

PRINTERS  TO  THE  LAW  DEPARTMENT  OF  YAI.E  UNIVERSITY, 

NEW  HAVEN,  CONN. 

1890. 


1 


3 


-( 


ADDRESS 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Graduating  Classes : 

The  fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  provides  that  "  *  *  *  when  the  right 
to  vote  at  any  election  for  the  choice  of  electors  for  Presi- 
dent and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  Represent- 
atives in  Congress,  the  executive  and  judicial  officers  of 
the  State  or  the  members  of  the  legislature  thereof,  is 
denied  to  any  of  the  male  inhabitants  of  such  State,  being 
twenty-one  years  of  age  and  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
or  in  any  way  abridged,  except  for  participation  in  rebel- 
lion or  other  crime,  the  basis  of  representation  therein 
shall  be  reduced  in  the  proportion  which  the  number  of 
such  male  citizens  shall  bear  to  the  whole  number  of  male 
citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age  in  such  State."  To  what- 
ever exigencies  of  the  time  its  enactment  may  have  been 
immediately  due,  this  provision  expresses  a  principle 
which  is  every  day  more  and  more  generally  and  prac- 
tically recognized  in  our  political  ethics,  although  to  oor 
great-grandfathers  it  would  have  appeared  equally  un- 
reasonable and  unjust.  We  are  not  yet  prepared  to  say 
that  the  right  to  participate  in  government  shall  not  be 
limited  by  sex ;  it  seems  scarcely  possible  that  we  shall 
ever  say  that  this  shall  not  in  some  degree  depend  upon 


age,  or  that  it  may  not  be  forfeited  by  crime  ;  but  any  other 
distinction  in  this  regard   between   citizens  is  for  us  an 
anomaly,  and  prima  facie  oppressive.     By  the  letter  of  the 
law  a  State  which  disfranchises  idiots  or  lunatics  or  tramps 
not  actually  convicted  of  vagrancy,  should  suffer  a  cor- 
responding diminution  in  its  representation,  and,  if  such 
a  result  is  improbable,  this  arises  from  the  facts  that  the 
first  two  classes  of  the  community  seldom  claim  political 
privileges,  while  the  last,  like  the  well  known  little  pig  of 
fable,  "  won't  stay  still  long  enough  to  be  counted."     We 
do  not  admit  that  a  man's  intelligence  or  education,  habits, 
reputation  or  means  can  appreciably  affect  his  fitness  to 
exercise  political  power.     If  he  is  a  male  of  the  species 
homo  sapiens,  has  completed  the  twenty-first  year  of  a  life 
honorable  or  shameful,  useful  or  useless  or  worse  than 
useless,  and  has  escaped,  by  whatsoever  means,  a  success- 
ful criminal  prosecution,  then  the  difference  between  his 
qualities  as  a  ruler  and  the  qualities  of  a  Pericles  or  Hamp- 
den  or  Washington,  becomes  one  of  those  least  things 
whereof  the  law  takes  no  account. 

Founded  upon  this  principle  we  have  "  a  government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people  and,"  in  theory,  "for  the 
people."  1  do  not  intend  to  discuss  its  abstract  merits  or 
shortcomings,  but  propose  to  consider  very  briefly  how 
far  certain  salient  characteristics  of  our  polity  are  to  be 
attributed  more  or  less  directly  to  our  popular  govern- 
ment; and  1  ask  your  indulgence  to  this  end  with  the  less 
hesitation  because  I  believe  that  some  enlightened  and 


5 

fair-minded  critics  of  our  institutions  misunderstand  the 
influence  exerted  on  these  by  the  progressive  dilution  of 
our  electorate  during-  the  past  hundred  years.  Doubt- 
less much  that  is  typically  "American"  is  so  because 
America  furnishes  the  most  striking-,  if  not  the  only,  ex- 
ample in  modern  times  of  a  pure  democracy  in  permanent 
control  of  a  great  nation,  yet  American  democracy  is  too 
often  credited  with  results,  whether  for  good  or  ill,  which 
are  in  nowise  its  fruit  and  which  it  may  even  tend  to  min- 
imize or  remove. 

I  would  first  note  that  our  form  of  government  has 
nothing  to  do,  either  as  a  hindrance  or  as  a  help,  with  two 
of  the  greatest  blessings  enjoyed  by  the  American  people. 
Compulsory  military  service  is  unknown  here  and  war 
very  improbable,  not  because  we  have  no  king  and  no 
nobility,  but  because  we  have  no  neighbors,  or  at  least, 
none  [who,  according  to  any  human  foresight,  can  grow 
into  rivals.  There  is  room  here  for  everybody,  not 
because  everybody  has  a  vote,  but  because  land  is  so 
plenty  and  men  are,  as  yet,  so  few.  I  have  indeed  seen 
the  statement  that  republics,  and  more  particularly  dem- 
ocratic republics,  are  essentially  unwarlike,  but  speaking 
where  I  am  and  to  the  hearers  I  see  before  me,  I  may 
assume  that  this  extraordinary  misreading  of  history  needs 
no  correction.  When,  a  quarter  of  a  century  since,  the 
people  of  these  United  States  had  to  decide  the  momentous 
question  whether  in  North  America  there  should  be  one 
great  power,  or  more  than  one,  they  decided  it  once  for  all. 


No  Roman  senator  or  citizen  echoed  Cato's  warning  more 
heartily  than  they  when  they  said  "  dclenda  est  "  of  any  pos- 
sible competitor  for  supremacy  on  the  continent.  They 
decided  then,  and  decided  wisely,  that  any  war,  however 
bloody,  any  waste,  however  lavish,  of  life  and  treasure 
and  human  suffering  must  be  borne,  if  needful,  that  they 
and  their  children  should  have  forever  a  world  to  them- 
selves. And  of  their  sacrifices  we  reap  the  just  fruit;  we 
are  not  perpetually  thinking  about  fighting  and  getting 
ready  to  fight,, only  because  when  our  fathers  had  fight- 
ing to  do  they  fought  to  a  finish.  To  their  foresight  and 
resolution  we  owe  an  immense  debt  of  happiness,  but 
democracy  did  not  make  them  thus  resolute  and  far-see- 
ing. Other  governments  of  widely  different  constitution, 
that  of  Rome  contending  with  Hannibal,  that  of  England, 
in  the  first  years  of  this  century,  have  dealt  as  firmly  and 
as  providentially  with  like  problems,  and  received  a  sup- 
port as  cordial  and  unwavering  from  the  peoples  they 
ruled.  Still  less  has  our  popular  government  put  so  many 
square  leagues  of  fertile  land  between  the  Atlantic  and 
the  Pacific,  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Great  Lakes,  and 
with  these  the  life-giving  forces  furnished  to  our  body 
politic  by  this  vast  area  for  untrammeled  growth.  It  has 
been  well  said  that  an  immerise  store  of  moral  energy  has 
gone  into  the  material  development  of  the  country,  but 
in  such  a  task  this  energy  is  exercised,  not  exhausted. 
As  a  smith's  arm  grows  the  stronger  with  every  blow  he 
deals,  so  every  new  province  reclaimed  from  weeds  and 


wild  beasts  and  wandering  savages,  has  served  to  purify 
and  invigorate  the  older  communities,  whose  children  did 
the  work.  Mischief,  as  we  all  know,  is  supplied  to  order 
and  in  unlimited  quantities  by  an  ever  watchful  provider 
for  idle  hands,  but  in  our  country  there  are  no  idle  hands, 
except  those  too  puny  and  nerveless  to  do  a  man's  work 
in  mischief  or  anything  else.  Our  two  leisured  classes, 
club  men  and  tramps,  if  always  useless  and  sometimes 
annoying,  are  in  nowise  dangerous,  and  we  can  turn  poten- 
tial nihilists  into  pioneers.  But  democracy  is  not  the 
cause  of  all  this ;  men  are  not  fitted  to  be  pioneers  by  the 
privileges  of  voters,  although  they  are  fitted  to  be  voters 
by  the  training  of  pioneers.  Our  system  of  internal  colo- 
nization owes  little 'or  nothing  of  its  success  to  our  system 
of  popular  government,  although  our  popular  govern- 
ment may,  perhaps,  owe  much  to  our  internal  colonization. 
To  form  an  intelligent  judgment  regarding  any  govern- 
ment, we  should  consider,  first,  its  scope,  then  its  means 
of  action  and,  lastly,  its  efficiency  and  economy,  or,  in 
other  words,  what  work  is  given  it  to  do,  how  it  is 
equipped  to  do  this  work,  and  how  thoroughly  or  imper- 
fectly, and  at  what  cost  is  the  work  in  fact  done.  One  of 
the  most  marked  characteristics  of  our  polity  is  the 
limited  scope  of  governmental  action.  We  ask  and  per- 
mit our  rulers  to  do  only  such  work  as  no  one  else  can  do 
for  us;  or,  if  this  statement  is  a  little  too  sweeping,  we 
require  clear  proof  that  they  can  do  it  better  than  it  will 
otherwise  be  done  before  entrusting  it  to  them.  In  case 


8 

of   any  doubt,  the   presumption    is   in   favor   of   private 
agencies ;  prima  facie  the  State's  intervention  is  an  evil, 
and  the  onus probandi  rests  always  on  its  advocates.     The 
consequences  of  this  fixed  mental  attitude  in  the  American 
people  are  far-reaching  and,  in  my  opinion,  profoundly 
salutary.     To  cite  but  a  single  illustration,  it  is  because 
and  only  because  we  strive  to  make  the  State's  duties  as 
few  and  as  easy  as  possible,  that  we  have  perfect  religious 
liberty,   and   yet    wellnigh    all   the    political    advantages 
which  flow  from  a  legal  sanction  to  religious  influences. 
This  aspect  of  our  national  life  is  peculiarly  puzzling  to  a 
foreigner.      He  is  told  that  in  America,  the  law  knows 
nothing  of  religion  and  treats  all  churches  just  as  it  treats 
base-ball  clubs ;  yet  on  Sunday  he  finds  the  daily  habits 
of  the  people  seriously  modified  by  law  in  deference  to 
religious  opinions ;  he  sees  the  proceedings  of  most  legis- 
lative bodies  opened   by  a  religious  service,  may  hear  a 
Court  reject  a  witness'  testimony  for  want  of  religious 
belief,  on  grounds  which  would  render  not  a  few  among 
the  statesmen   of  Continental   Europe   avowedly   incom- 
petent, and   learns  that  in  almost  every   State,   Church 
buildings  are  exempted  from  taxation,  and  clergymen  from 
militia  service  or  jury  duty.     It  is  hardly  surprising  if  he 
does  not  readily  understand  this,  and  yet  the  explanation 
is  very  simple.     We  are,  in   fact,  essentially  a  religious 
people,  but  we  do  not  deem  the  civil  government  com 
petent  to  determine  the  comparative  merits  of  different 
faiths.     That  function  is  reserved  to  the  individual  citizen, 


9 

and  wherever  public  opinion  ceases  to  be  practically 
unanimous  as  to  questions  of  belief  or  morals,  the  State's 
province  ends. 

Our  civil  rulers  are  not  anointed  of  the  Lord  ;  their 
oath  of  office  has  no  quasi-sacramental  efficacy  to  make 
them  providential  leaders  in  the  paths  of  salvation  ;  their 
concern  is  with  the  things  of  Caesar,  and  we  have  no 
wish  that  they  should  meddle  with  what  concerns  them 
not.  And  as  we  forbid  the  State  to  become  a  Church, 
so  we  forbid,  or  at  least  discourage  its  undertaking  any 
business  to  which  anybody  else  can  and  will  attend.  Ad- 
vocates of  communistic  experiments  among  us  are  men 
who  have  not  yet  become,  who,  for  the  most  part,  never 
will  become  Americans ;  for  the  mass  of  our  people  their 
visions  of  Utopia  are  unattractive  and  well  nigh  unintel- 
ligible ;  an  omniscient  and  omnipotent  government,  mak- 
ing everybody  happy  according  to  rule,  is  to  Americans 
not  only  a  dream  but  a  nightmare. 

But  is  this  self-helpfulness  due  to  democracy  ?  Do  we 
limit  .the  province  of  the  Government  thus  strictly,  be- 
cause in  that  government  all  of  us  share?  Are  we,  in 
short,  so  free  because  we  are  so  nearly  equal  before  the 
Law?  These  questions  are  answered  if  we  remember 
that  freedom  is  our  heritage,  equality  we  have  made  for 
ourselves.  Our  forefathers  had  been  free  from  time 
whereof  the  memory  of  man  ran  not  to  the  contrary  be- 
fore the  Declaration  of  Independence  proclaimed  all  other 


10 

men  of  right  their  equals;    we  have  grown  no  more,  if 
not  less,  free,  since  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amend- 
ments have  given  their  logical  effect  to  these  words.     The 
doctrine  that,  presumptively  a  man  can  take  better  care 
of  himself  than  the  State  can  take  of  him,  came  to  Amer- 
ica with  the  tongue  and  the  laws  of  our  Mother  country  ; 
in  asserting  it,  we  say  as  truly  as  did  the  parliament  of 
Merton,  Noluimis  leges  Anglicz  mutare.      Indeed,  to   my 
mjnd,  the  gravest  problem  of  our  future  is  whether  indi- 
vidual liberty,  as  we  know  it,  can  permanently  co-exist 
with  popular  government ;  whether  it  is  possible  to  make 
or  keep  men  equal  without  abridging  their  freedom,  as  a 
trade-union  prevents  one  workman  from  over-topping  his 
fellows  only  by  dwarfing  all  alike. 

Habeas  Corpus  and  the  Dartmouth  College  decision 
have  tempered  and  elevated  American  democracy,  but, 
except  for  an  optimist,  it  is  an  open  question  whether, 
even  in  America,  there  can  be  long  a  democracy  of 
freemen. 

Such,  however,  is  the  government  we  now  have,  and 
whatever  may  be  its  future  dangers  or  present  short-com- 
ings, it  has  at  least  the  undoubted  merit  of  irresistible 
strength.  We  jealously  narrow  its  sphere  of  action,  but 
within  that  sphere  we  permit  no  resistance  to  its  will. 
Public  opinion  in  the  United  States  is  thoroughly  sound 
and  healthy  when  dealing  with  law-breakers;  we  have 
our  full  share  of  those  old  ladies  of  both  sexes  whose 
reasoning  faculties  are  located  in  their  lachrymal  glands, 


II 


but  nowhere  to  my  knowledge  is  the  national  conscience 
less  confused  by  that  morbid  shrinking  from  the  use  of 
physical  force  against  evil  doers  which  is  a  moral  malady 
of   the   age.     We   hardly    understand    why   the    English 
should  hesitate  to  give  their  policemen  firearms;  "need 
a  body  cry  "  if  an  officer's  revolver  does  now  and  then 
save  our  Courts  the  trouble  of  trying  a  burglar,  and  cut 
off  his  chance  of  "  burgling  "  again  when  released  or  es- 
caped from  prison?     We  think  of  such  a  catastrophe  as 
Louis  XVIII  thought  of  Lord  Byron's  death  :  "  Cest  un 
mauvais  sujct  dc  mains;  voila  tout."     Nor  have  we  any  of 
the  tenderness  for  turbulent  or  disaffected  people,  which 
springs,  more  or  less  consciously,  from  a  belief  or  suspi- 
cion  that,  however   wrong-headed   these    may   be  as  to 
their  remedies,  their  discontent  is  due  to  real  grievances. 
We  feel  that  where  every  citizen  has  his  share  in  making 
the  laws,  those  claim  more  than  their  share  who  ask  the 
privilege  of  breaking  them  ;  that  a  minority  which  refuses 
obedience  attempts  usurpation.     And,  as  the  law  is  made 
by  all,  it  is  the  business  of  all  to  aid  in  its  enforcement. 
It  is  not  the  King's  peace,  but  the  people's  peace  which 
here  is  broken  by  crime,  and  so  it  is  not  the  King's  con- 
cern, but  the  concern  of  the  whole  community  to  guard 
against  or  punish  the  breach.     The  sense  of  this  solidar- 
ity among  all  citizens  is  illustrated,  a  little  paradoxically 
perhaps,    but    nevertheless    conspicuously    by   our   much 
mis-judged  custom  of  lynching.     I  do  not  deny  that  this 
summary   system   of   criminal    procedure    has  very   seri- 


12 

ous  drawbacks,  but  I  believe  its  advantages  are  generally 
underestimated  and  its  theory  is  too  often  misunderstood. 
Sir  Henry  Maine  has  pointed  out  that  in  a  primitive  soci- 
ety the  growth  of  Criminal  Law  is  retarded  by  the  very 
distinctness  with  which  the  conception  of  crime  as  a 
wrong  to  the  community  is  realized.  At  first  the  State 
deals  with  its  internal  as  with  its  external  enemies  by  the 
immediate  exercise  of  its  military  strength,  and  every 
sentence  is  less  a  judgment  than  a  bill  of  attainder.  It  is 
only  when  the  State  has  come  to  mean  rather  an  abstract 
entity  than  you  and  me  and  all  of  us,  or  when  it  has  been 
personified  in  some  individual  sovereign,  that  the  ques- 
tion w.hether  a  prisoner  is  guilty  of  any  offence  against 
society  becomes  over-shadowed  by  the  question  whether 
he  can  be  convicted  of  the  particular  charge  against  him 
under  the  law  and  the  evidence,  and  a  criminal  proceed- 
ing is  converted  from  a  vindication  of  the  community's 
safety  and  dignity  into  a  trial  of  skill  between  the  govern- 
ment and  the  traverser,  adapted  especially  to  determine 
whether  the  latter  has  committed  the  Spartan's  unpardon- 
able fault  of  being  found  out.  Now  lynching  is  caused 
by  a  revival  of  the  primitively  vivid  conception  of  crime 
as  a  wrong  to  society,  to  society  viewed,  not  as  a  creation 
of  the  mind,  but  as  simply  an  aggregate  of  its  members; 
some  of  these  members  know  or  believe  that  they  (to- 
gether with  all  others)  have  been  so  wronged;  they  only 
see  to  it  that  the  wrong  receives  its  appropriate  punish- 
ment. In  so  doing  the}'  themselves  take  some  liberties 


13 

with  the  law,  but  they  may  remind  a  harsh  critic  of  the 
king  who  fell  overboard  and  was  allowed  to  drown  by 
too-respectful  sailors  because  they  feared  to  profane  his 
sacred  person  in  handling-  it.     In  practice  the  system  is 
unquestionably  liable  to  abuse.     Judge  Lynch  may  make 
mistakes,  and  his  mistakes  can  be  corrected  by  no  writ  of 
error,  but  if  the  number  of  failures  of  justice  in  his  Court 
could  be  compared  with  those  in  our  more  regular  tribu- 
nals, I  am  not  sure  that  he  need  fear  the  result.     I  believe 
that  very  few  innocent  men  are  lynched,  and,  of  those  who 
have  not  committed  the  particular  offence  for  which  they 
suffer,  a  still  smaller  proportion  are  desirable  members  of 
society.     It  is,  of  course,  an  evil  that  the  law  should  be 
occasionally  enforced  by  lawless  means,  but  it  is,  in  my 
opinion,  a  greater  evil  that  it  should  be  habitually  duped 
and  evaded  by  means  formally  lawful.     A  few  defaulting 
State  treasurers  or  "boodle"  aldermen  hanging  untried 
to  lamp-posts  might  not  be  an  edifying  spectacle,  but  it 
would  have  a  more  wholesome  effect  on  public  officials, 
than  a  long   series  of  quashed    indictments,  disagreeing 
juries,  forfeited  "  straw  "  recognizances  and  varying  phases 
of  legal  impunity  for  prosperous  scoundrelism. 

In  truth,  lynching  is  an  attempt  to  supply  within  the 
unquestioned  province  of  the  government  the  govern- 
ment's equally  unquestioned  deficiency,  and  its  practice 
constitutes  a  grave  and  disquieting  symptom  of  the  evil 
it  seeks  to  remedy.  If  popular  government  does  not  so 
administer  justice  as  to  satisfy  the  moral  sense  of  the 


'4 

people,  then  popular  government  fails  to  fulfill  its  duty. 
A  government,  like  every  other  contrivance  of  man  or 
production  of  nature,  must  be  judged  by  its  fruits.     The 
worth  of  American    democracy   will  be  gauged  by  our 
answers  to  two  questions,  namely  : — To  what  manner  of 
men  does  it  entrust  political  power  ?     And  how  well  or 
ill  do  these  men  exercise  that  power?     These  questions 
involve  comparisons,  and  comparisons   are  proverbially 
odious,  because  seldom  fair,  but  I  shall  not  test  the  merits 
of  our  rulers  and  of  their  rule  by  any  foreign  standards. 
I    ask   you    to    measure    the    leaders   of   the   thoroughly 
democratic   America  of  to-day  by  the  leaders  of  the  far 
less   democratic    America   of   a   century    since,    and    the 
management  of  our  public  affairs  by  the  management  of 
our  great  industrial  and  educational  enterprises.     A  year 
ago  the  highest  officers  of  the  Union  were  welcomed  by 
those   of  our  greatest  State  and  greatest  City  in  cele- 
brating the  Centennial  anniversary  of  our  first  President's 
assumption  of  office :  how  looked  these  men  and  all  the 
other  dignitaries  around   them    when  shadowed    by  the 
memories   of    those    who    had    a    hundred    years    before 
accompanied  or  greeted  Washington  ? 

Yale  and  Harvard  are  ruled  by  oligarchies ;  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  and  the  New  York  Central  are  plutoc- 
racies; are  these  corporations  managed  with  greater  or 
with  less  fidelity,  skill  and  success  than  are  shown  in  the 
administration  of,  for  example,  the  City  or  the  State  of 
New  York?  And  how.  think  you?  Would  the  univer- 


15 

sities  be  better  governed,  or  worse,  if  every  citizen,  learn- 
ed or  ignorant,  of  New  Haven  or  Cambridge,  had,  by 
right  of  birth  or  residence',  a  voice  in  their  affairs  ?  Would 
the  railroads  be  more  or  less  prosperous  if  the  stockhold- 
ers had  to  share  their  control  with  all  the  brakemen  and 
switch-tenders  in  their  employ,  or  all  the  passengers  and 
shippers  who  use  them  ?  In  brief,  is  it  true  that  as  a  ruler 
on  any  field  or  for  any  end  TtoXv  rs  diacpepsiv  ov  dzi 


It  is  not  true  ;  it  is  not  really  believed  to  be  true  by 
any  thinking  man  ;  and  from  its  assumption  of  set  purpose 
as  a  postulate  in  any  scheme  of  government  there  will 
flow  all  the  baleful  consequences  of  a  deliberately  acted 
lie.  We  have  not  escaped  the  penalty,  but  it  is  the  lighter 
for  us  because  we  have  been  half-hearted  in  the  sin  ;  we 
indeed  set  up  a  popular  government,  but  we  give  that 
government  the  least  possible  to  do,  and  when  its  ineffi- 
ciency becomes  dangerous  we  help  it  out  with  even  this 
trifling  work.  We  get  along  with  so  little  ruling  that  we 
can  in  some  measure  afford  to  be  careless  as  to  the  quality 
of  our  rulers;  our  resources  are  so  boundless,  the  work 
of  their  development  is  so  absorbing,  our  national  life  is 
so  overflowing  with  energy  and  health,  that  we  will  not 
lose  the  time  we  can  ill  spare  "  o'er  petty  quarrels  upon 
petty  things"  among  the  petty  men  we  endure  as  politi- 
cians. In  the  exuberance  of  our  youthful  strength,  we 
think  we  can  neglect  little  ailments,  formidable  perhaps 
to  those  without  our  immense  advantages.  But  a  day  of 


i6 


reckoning  awaits  this  heedlessness.  We  cannot,  with  im- 
.  punity,  dismiss  from  thought  the  character  and  conduct 
of  our  public  men,  although  we  may  be  rich  enough  to 
bear  any  degree  of  mismanagement  and  profusion.  Cor- 
ruption creeps  surely  into  an  ill-regulated  national  family, 
and  it  is  no  less  true  now  than  when  Burke  spoke  that 
"there  never  was  long*  corrupt  government  of  a  virtuous 
people."  To-day  Americans  confront  the  problem  wheth- 
er they  shall  purify  their  government  or  their  government 
shall  debase  them. 

We  shall  purify  our  government  and  the  universities  of 
America  must  lead  in  the  work.     We  need  an  aristocracy 
in  the  true  and  original,  not  the  technical  and  perverted, 
sense  of  the  word  ;  a  government  by  the  men  best  fitted 
to  govern  ;  it  is  for  Yale  and  her  sisters  to  supply  such 
men.     You,  gentlemen  of  the  Faculty  of  this  old  and  hon- 
ored seat  of  learning,  you  do  less  than  your  part  if  any 
youth  leaves  your  walls  believing  that  he  owes  no  greater 
debt  to  his  country  than  if  they  had  never  sheltered  him. 
I  call  on  you  to  teach  those  for  whose  after  lives  you  must 
so  largely  answer  that   the  post  and  the   work  of   each 
citizen  in  the  commonwealth  are  fixed  for  him  by  no  Pro- 
crustean standard  of  legal  uniformity,  but  by  his  faculties 
and  his  blessings;    that  when    God  gives  him  light  and 
strength  to  wield  power  for  the  good  of  his  fellow  men, 
He  gives  with  them  the  right  to  claim  and  the  duty  to 
seek  such  power.     Teach  them  to  reject  in  word  and  action 
a  mischievous  sophism,  so  shallow  that  to  clearly  state  is 


17 

to  expose  it,  but  which,  repeated  parrot-like  by  thousands 
who  recognize  its  emptiness,  has  maimed  and  distorted 
our  conception  of  civic  duty.  Teach  them  to  see,  not 
that  men  are  essentially  and  by  nature  unequal,  for  of 
that  only  the  blind  could  fail,  but  that  it  is  unworthy  of  a 
good  and  brave  man  to  shut  his  eyes  to  what  is.  In  short, 
teach  them,  in  this,  as  in  every  other,  field  of  thought, 
to  know  and  tell  and  act  the  truth,  and  this  truth  shall 
make  them,  and  others  through  them,  truly  and  worthily 
free ! 


